Thursday 20th March 2003

Silver Arrow at Goodwood

Mercedes dig out a legend from the back of a shed

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Visitors to this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed have a treat in store, thanks to Mercedes-Benz. The company will give high-speed demonstrations of its celebrated W 196 R Streamliner racing car for the first time in some 40 years.

The Festival of Speed has seen numerous Mercedes cars starring in recent years. In 2001 a sky-high 300 SL "Gullwing" formed the focus of the central display, while 2002 saw 50 years of SL motoring celebrated. This year's festival marks the long-awaited return of one of the most dominant Grand Prix cars ever built.

The first formula racing car built by Mercedes-Benz after WWII, the W 196 R is the car that helped legendary Argentinian driver Juan Manuel Fangio to his world championship in 1954 (his second at the wheel of a Mercedes followed in 1955). Although there was little doubt of the company’s return to competition following its previous racing success, the wait until 1954 produced emphatic results.

New regulations for 1954 meant that manufacturers could choose either 750 cc supercharged engines, or 2500 cc naturally aspirated units. Daimler-Benz, under the guidance of engineering genius Rudolf Uhlenhaut, chose the latter route. The result was the W 196 R Streamliner.

In the cars' first outing at the French Grand Prix in Reims, the team held pole and second place on the grid, led for every lap and scored an historic debut one-two at the hands of Fangio and German racing ace Karl Kling. The circuit's long straights suited the aerodynamic bodywork and powerful engine. A modified open-wheeled version of this car, without its sleek bodywork, (which wasn't suited to tighter, twisting tracks) went on to double championship glory in 1954 and '55. The W 196 R Streamliner's place in the motor sport hall of fame was sealed, though.

The car being used has an interesting history, having been used by Fangio, Kling and by Stirling Moss as a test car at Monza.

It has just undergone a six-year restoration at Mercedes-Benz's Classic Centre in Stuttgart. Having lain dormant in the same condition in which it last left the track some 40 years ago, the Streamliner fell into disrepair.

The car featured a number of innovations that were set to become the norm only years later - including direct petrol injection, space frame chassis technology and two spark plugs per cylinder.

This year's festival runs from Friday 11th to Sunday 13th July.

Goodwood Festival of Speed

[Podie]

cool...!

100 years of Ford too... be interesting to see what (if?) they dig out anything...

F3L? RS200? various GT40's? New GT40 will be there from what I've heard on the grapevine...

[gnomesmith]

Twin sparking plugs were hardly an innovation in 1954. Almost as bad as this weeks Autocar that claims that the original Mini Cooper was 'invented' sic in Worthing and that Subaru are to introduce the worlds first horizontally opposed diesel engine. That statement requires a Commer and I'm not referring to punctuation.

Am I the only sad old git who expects accuracy?

Edited to make the last line say what it should have said had my brain been turned on!

>> Edited by gnomesmith on Friday 21st March 12:32

[Fatboy]

Don't a lot of military vehicle use horizontally opposed diesel engines today? Not sure who you're referring to Gnomesmith, could you expand on that a bit?

[CVP]

I know a lot of factual inaccuracies crop up in the press. Annoying as it is I guess it's one of the things we live with (even if it sometimes makes our blood boil).

However, back on the topic of Mercedes firstly restoring and then digging out this legend to come to Goodwood. Good on them. It's nice to see manufacturers like this bringing a true legend to support Goodwood. Cars were made to be driven and so they should be rather than just sitting around in museums.

Chris

[PetrolTed]

Well I guess I'm responsible for this inaccuracy. I used the material supplied by Mercedes in compiling the story and I guess I was fooled into thinking they invented everything

[gnomesmith]

Being German they have ways......a friend had a 1907 GP Merc that had twin plugs so they were certainly early adopters. My old Rudge motorcycle had twin plugs too, they were quite modish in the twenties.

Aircraft, ships and fighting vehicles use boxer diesels. My obscure reference was to the Commer commercial engine, as used in the Equire Ecosse transporter. A super horizontally opposed two stroke supercharged diesel, I found one in the railway scrapyard at Barry (Woodleys yard?), my wife wouldn't let me take it though.

I have edited my original posting, last line, as it made no sense.

>> Edited by gnomesmith on Friday 21st March 12:34